alveolar click

Not to be confused with the alveolar clicks.

Each language below is illustrated with alveolar clicks, apart from Dahalo, which only has dental.

Kung have been variously described as retroflex or fricated alveolar clicks.

Common alveolar clicks are:

The rear articulation of the alveolar clicks, however, is several centimeters further back, and involves a different set of muscles in the uvular region.

Voiced alveolar clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages.

In East Africa, however, the alveolar clicks tend to be flapped, while the lateral clicks tend to be more sharp.

Like the clicks they derive from, they do not have the retracted tongue root and back-vowel constraint typical of alveolar clicks.

However, the palatal and alveolar clicks frequently have the opposite names in older literature, and they were not distinguished in the IPA until 1989.

The fricated alveolar clicks may be lingual or linguo-pulmonic-that is, they may be affricates at both places of articulation, or at one.

The IPA symbols are used in writing most Khoisan languages, but Bantu languages such as Zulu typically use Latin c, x and q for dental, lateral, and alveolar clicks respectively.

These clicks are affricates at the posterior place of articulation; they are independent of the fricated alveolar clicks, which are affricates at their anterior place of articulation, a manner which does not affect the airstream.